บทที่ บทที่ 2 · II. A general glance bestowed upon the good town of Tarascon, and a

. II. A general glance bestowed upon the good town of Tarascon, and a

particular one on “the cap-poppers.”

AT the time I am telling of, Tartarin of Tarascon had not become the

present-day Tartarin, the great one so popular in the whole South of

France: but yet he was even then the cock of the walk at Tarascon.

Let us show whence arose this sovereignty.

In the first place you must know that everybody is shooting mad in these

parts, from the greatest to the least. The chase is the local craze, and

so it has ever been since the mythological times when the Tarasque, as

the county dragon was called, flourished himself and his tail in the

town marshes, and entertained shooting parties got up against him. So

you see the passion has lasted a goodish bit.

It follows that, every Sunday morning, Tarascon flies to arms, lets

loose the dogs of the hunt, and rushes out of its walls, with game-bag

slung and fowling-piece on the shoulder, together with a hurly-burly of

hounds, cracking of whips, and blowing of whistles and hunting-horns.

It’s splendid to see! Unfortunately, there’s a lack of game, an absolute

dearth.

Stupid as the brute creation is, you can readily understand that, in

time, it learnt some distrust.

For five leagues around about Tarascon, forms, lairs, and burrows are

empty, and nesting-places abandoned. You’ll not find a single quail or

blackbird, one little leveret, or the tiniest tit. And yet the pretty

hillocks are mightily tempting, sweet smelling as they are of myrtle,

lavender, and rosemary; and the fine muscatels plumped out with

sweetness even unto bursting, as they spread along the banks of the

Rhone, are deucedly tempting too. True, true; but Tarascon lies behind

all this, and Tarascon is down in the black books of the world of fur

and feather. The very birds of passage have ticked it off on their

guide-books, and when the wild ducks, coming down towards the Camargue

in long triangles, spy the town steeples from afar, the outermost flyers

squawk out loudly:

“Look out! there’s Tarascon! give Tarascon the go-by, duckies!”

And the flocks take a swerve.

In short, as far as game goes, there’s not a specimen left in the land

save one old rogue of a hare, escaped by miracle from the massacres, who

is stubbornly determined to stick to it all his life! He is very well

known at Tarascon, and a name has been given him. “Rapid” is what

they call him. It is known that he has his form on M. Bompard’s

grounds--which, by the way, has doubled, ay, tripled, the value of the

property--but nobody has yet managed to lay him low. At present, only

two or three inveterate fellows worry themselves about him. The rest

have given him up as a bad job, and old Rapid has long ago passed

into the legendary world, although your Tarasconer is very slightly

superstitious naturally, and would eat cock-robins on toast, or the

swallow, which is Our Lady’s own bird, for that matter, if he could find

any.

“But that won’t do!” you will say. Inasmuch as game is so scarce, what

can the sportsmen do every Sunday?

What can they do?

Why, goodness gracious! they go out into the real country two or

three leagues from town. They gather in knots of five or six, recline

tranquilly in the shade of some well, old wall, or olive tree, extract

from their game-bags a good-sized piece of boiled beef, raw onions, a

sausage, and anchovies, and commence a next to endless snack, washed

down with one of those nice Rhone wines, which sets a toper laughing and

singing. After that, when thoroughly braced up, they rise, whistle the

dogs to heel, set the guns on half cock, and go “on the shoot”--another

way of saying that every man plucks off his cap, “shies” it up with all

his might, and pops it on the fly with No. 5, 6, or 2 shot, according to

what he is loaded for.

The man who lodges most shot in his cap is hailed as king of the hunt,

and stalks back triumphantly at dusk into Tarascon, with his riddled

cap on the end of his gun-barrel, amid any quantity of dog-barks and

horn-blasts.

It is needless to say that cap-selling is a fine business in the town.

There are even some hatters who sell hunting-caps ready shot, torn, and

perforated for the bad shots; but the only buyer known is the chemist

Bezuquet. This is dishonourable!

As a marksman at caps, Tartarin of Tarascon never had his match.

Every Sunday morning out he would march in a new cap, and back he would

strut every Sunday evening with a mere thing of shreds. The loft of

Baobab Villa was full of these glorious trophies. Hence all Tarascon

acknowledged him as master; and as Tartarin thoroughly understood

hunting, and had read all the handbooks of all possible kinds of venery,

from cap-popping to Burmese tiger-shooting, the sportsmen constituted

him their great cynegetical judge, and took him for referee and

arbitrator in all their differences.

Between three and four daily, at Costecalde the gunsmith’s, a stout

stern pipe-smoker might be seen in a green leather-covered arm-chair in

the centre of the shop crammed with cap-poppers, they all on foot and

wrangling. This was Tartarin of Tarascon delivering judgement--Nimrod

plus Solomon.